DSi XL a good choice?

[BazookaBen]

If Nintend would just get their shit together and stop making things into a lottery, people would like them more.

Hahaha, dude you are delusional if you think even a tenth of 1% of Nintendo's customers care whether their 3DS's panels are IPS or TN.

[Ikaruga11]

If Nintend would just get their shit together and stop making things into a lottery, people would like them more.

Hahaha, dude you are delusional if you think even a tenth of 1% of Nintendo's customers care whether their 3DS's panels are IPS or TN.

True

[bobrocks95]

97%+ of the population doesn't even know that there are different types of LCDs I'm pretty sure. Consistency would be nice, but it doesn't affect their public image in any way whatsoever.

[Guspaz]

97%+ of the population probably thinks "LED televisions" and "LCD televisions" are fundamentally different, but "OLED television" and "LED television" are the same thing.

[Exidna]

Well this is weird.
Using the 6500K DSi XL at night, I noticed a lot of blue light surrounding the bottom screen when it isn't displaying anything.
Pulled out the 9300K DSi XL and it's leaking light in the same place (outside of the LCD) but it's the same color as the screen.

Makes me think that the 6500K DSi XL is using a blue backlight and an enhancement film, while the 9300K DSi XL is just using "white" LEDs.
That would probably explain the higher brightness from it too. High color temperatures like 9300K are often used to make the image appear brighter, so you would typically expect a 9300K screen to be brighter than a 6500K one, but if they're achieving 6500K with blue LEDs plus an enhancement film that can be more efficient than white LEDs.
So that makes me think it's possible that this could be a newer unit (6500K) vs new old stock (9300K) and that they may have changed this in production at some point. I compared the serial numbers and the 6500K model's is about 2.5 million higher!
The images will also give you an idea of the backlight bleed that both systems have on the lower screen. The upper screen is perfect on both, the lower screen shows bleed from roughly the same location, which is why I suspect that most DSi XL's may suffer from it. I bet it's due to the way the screen is mounted in them.

97%+ of the population probably thinks "LED televisions" and "LCD televisions" are fundamentally different, but "OLED television" and "LED television" are the same thing.

I wish Sony had stuck with OLED for the second revision of the Vita hardware. They fixed a lot of its faults, but I've been thinking about getting a Vita lately and I don't want to get one with an LCD.

[ZellSF]

Most people who have used both I've seen preferred the LCD Vita over OLED Vita. Not saying the OLED display on the Vita isn't great, just saying there are other things that might matter in a handheld.

Actually went to the local electronics store yesterday, and all the demo TVs were showing a black and white scene. The OLED model actually visible stood out from all the TVs in a huge room.

Of course with the input lag of LG's current OLEDs and the fact that upon closer inspection it already had a TV channel logo burned in... I'm not getting an OLED TV yet.

That was a bit off topic. So DSi panel lottery: like all LCDs, do you want to try again over a color difference when the next draw could be excessive backlight bleed, defect pixels or dust stuck under the screen? It's possible to get a perfect screen, but when you're really picky you really need to think carefully about what you can or can't accept.

[Einzelherz]

It seems a lot of you guys don't know how manufacturing works. If you sell a crap ton of product, chances are you need more than one supplier for your parts. Sometimes, this isn't a problem, but with electronics you get better and worse batches. If your main concern is meeting consumer demand, you'll allow those worse things to make it into the market.

Or it's entirely possible that it was a bean counter decision. I've seen it go both ways, and that was with non electronic parts which are less susceptible to variance.

[Exidna]

It seems a lot of you guys don't know how manufacturing works. If you sell a crap ton of product, chances are you need more than one supplier for your parts. Sometimes, this isn't a problem, but with electronics you get better and worse batches. If your main concern is meeting consumer demand, you'll allow those worse things to make it into the market.

Or it's entirely possible that it was a bean counter decision. I've seen it go both ways, and that was with non electronic parts which are less susceptible to variance.

One of two things seems to have happened here:
1. They switched production at some point, using displays with blue LED backlights and enhancement film instead of white LEDs. Or perhaps just specifying a 6500K screen so there may be a mixture of blue and white LED backlit screens.
2. They don't have a spec for the screen's color temperature at all, and they're just putting in the cheapest screen which has the right resolution and size. (which may happen to be #1 for some batches of them)

The kind of variance you'd get from a screen specced to 6500K or 9300K is just like I've measured on these - where the "6500K" screen is measuring 6746K average, and the "9300K" screen is measuring 9116K average.
The problem is not that there's some manufacturing variance or screens sourced from different suppliers, but that they're mixing screens which are completely different grades of quality. It's particularly bad with the n3DS/XL, where you may or may not end up with an IPS panel on one or both of the screens. (considerably better than the other panels)

[ZellSF]

It's Nintendo. It's #2.

[bobrocks95]

So I've used my DSi XL a bit now, and the two screens are different color temperatures. It would probably drive you crazy exidna haha.

The console's great, so I'll live with it. May buy a broken one or two and Frankenstein a really good one together- I definitely need a US PCB swap if I want DSi games on it. I don't think I saw anything Japan-exclusive that caught my eye, could be wrong though.